Ian Cooper:

In addition to layout work on the Guide, work continues on The Coming Storm, in Berlin. The main goals on what we are calling The Big Push are: a final draft of the text, early versions of art direction. The goal on the former is not necessarily to have all the typos cleared up, all the grammar and spelling corrected, or even final tweaks banned. However, it is to have a final text that Moon Designs can move into those next stages. The goal on the latter is to start thinking about the “look and feel” off this book.

Jeff’s first pass at the first 125 pages of the book – the background on the Red Cow, Cinsina, and their neighbours produced 72 comments. That sounds high, but most of these were order of elements in the text, division into sections, replacing ugly names instead of any demands for sizeable rewrites. We expected that, we have had a number of passes over that material. Today he should get to the second 125 pages of the book – the campaign material. There may be more change coming on that one, because it has had less passes.

Aware that he was visiting Germany, Ian Cooper (your author in this post) put together a firm timetable for the week, fully expecting the interruptions in Jeff’s life to make that impossible. So far Jeff is on target, and Ian… well Ian has been very English and fallen behind whilst getting up late, eating a full English breakfast, and drinking tea. Still he will push on today.

As always, work at Moon Designs employs the full staff of the Berlin office. Here we see creative consultant Finn outline his requirements for The Guide to Jeff:

As always with these things, the discussions Jeff and I have can be wide-ranging. Yesterday, discussions around women’s fashion took up some of our time. The traditional model for  Sartarite women’s clothing has been very Saxon/Viking. The overdress with brooches at the shoulders With the work on the Guide we have begun to see more influence from Minoan culture. The dresses here, for noble Esrolian women, with their pleated skirts for example this image of Esrolians.  Of course Esrolia was one of the dominant cultural influences on Sartar so this style, the pleated skirt traveled north with the resettlement. But whilst this style seems fine for noble women, or Wind Day best, I wanted to know what women wore when they were working on the farm. We’re digging for influences, but we think that something more like this may be appropriate for a cottar’s wife, labouring around the farm.

We’re also having a wide ranging discussion of what happens up until 1628. Although the campaign in The Coming Storm ends after 1625, we need to understand what happens next, so that we can foreshadow anything we might later want to use. This may be very relevant for the Eleven Lights, a part of the Sartar Magical Union, whose formation is part of the story this campaign tells. We determined by looking at the wider picture, that they may need to meet Argrath in 1624.

And today, well part of the plan involves playing the boardgame Dragon Pass (or White Bear and Red Moon for the old school Gloranthans amongst you). Why? So we can think about the impact of those opening moves on the campaign.